Frederick Samuel Geary

Fred Geary worked in the family butchers and grocers shop. At the start of the war he was just over the age for call up and is said to have had a minor heart attack as well. He joined the Local Defence Volunteers, which became the Home Guard. He didn’t speak of his involvement in Auxiliary Units, but would talk about having been in the Home Guard. June Bentley, his daughter, recalls that he enjoyed going out “with the lads” training on a Sunday morning, though they usually ended up in the pub, drinking or playing darts. He would tell tales of how on exercises they had captured another Patrol, or been captured himself (though of course it was never his fault). Ted Geary was his brother.

After the war, Fred Geary would demonstrate his explosives training on occasion. His daughter remembers a large hole being blown in the lawn one Fireworks night as he set off some left over detonators. His son recalls seeing one or more hand grenades in a drum of oil in the workshop (soaking in oil is one way to deactivate cordite explosive).

The Patrol also met to train on Fred Geary’s eight acre field just outside Ringwood, close to Moyles Court. There was a pig sty there where they would also play darts !